Death is Certain, Its hour uncertain
by Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker
Summary: It is the perfect crime. He would master every aspect of Ryou's life. He would eliminate him, and then become him. He would get close to the target. Then he would complete the mission.  *Pairings like whoa.


CHEESY SPY STORY :D It isn't, though… Written for Round Two of Ryou VeRua's YGO Fanfiction Contest Season 8.5, challenge pairing: Conceitshipping, Dark BakuraxMai, with a side pairing of Candleshipping, Dark BakuraxSetoxRyou and Polarshipping, MaixJounouchi. One of those stories I've been meaning to write for years :D

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**{Death is Certain**; _Its hour uncertain}_

**[]**

This is the job he was born for.

On a superficial level, it is his genes that make him the perfect candidate. His hair and skin match perfectly. His height, within an inch of the target's. He has been told that his look is too lean, too hungry, so he eats rich foods and sleeps—as much as he can, at least. He lost that luxury long ago, so he steals hours whenever his restless mind allows him.

On a deeper level, he knows that this is what everything has been leading up to. The countless hours of training, preparation, the waste-of-time assignments—this is his chance.

Bakura studies himself in the mirror, noting every contour of his body, every expression of his face. It is not enough to be extremely self-aware… the real challenge is to master _his_ movements. It is not enough to have everyone believe you, to stake their lives on it: you must believe it yourself.

He is staking his life on it.

_Six months to the day he had gotten the call from his handler, Kujaku Mai. "We need to meet. There's a new case for you." She sounded smug, as if the whole deal was due to her efforts alone. _

"_Tomorrow, then? At the agency?"_

"_Hell no. This is deep cover—as far as you're concerned, after today there is no agency. There's a little café I like across the street from the city Library. Bright green awnings, you can't miss it. They do a roaring lunch business—let's say, twelve?"_

"_See you there." He ended the call, his mind already working it through, the familiar feeling frothing up inside of him. He wondered where they were going to let him loose this time._

_He arrived at eleven and grabbed a corner booth, where he had a good view of both doors. Mai came thirty minutes later; she scanned the room just as he had, and made her way over to his table. She was an envoy, a link in the chain between field agents and the central command. He wondered on multiple occasions why she never left her desk, but she seemed the type to always fall short in some way or another. She also attracted far too much attention._

_Mai removed several binders from her purse, sliding them across the table to him. They were medical histories, school reports, building schematics, pages upon pages of full-color photographs, the majority of one individual…_

"_Who is he?" Bakura's eyes narrowed. He never liked coincidences._

"_His name is Ryou," Mai said, her painted nails pointing to the caption on the page. They both leaned down and, for a minute, just stared at the glossy picture. The resemblance was astonishing—they could have been brothers. "He's the significant other of Domino's most powerful man—of course, the media doesn't know." She flipped forward several pages, and Bakura recognized that scowling face immediately. Anyone could pick Seto Kaiba out of a lineup. _

_It didn't take much to guess at the true nature of the job. "So he's the ultimate target, then."_

"_His fortune is, along with quite a few Kaiba Corporation files. According to the Agency, Kaiba's hid away countless records from the old days—back when KC was into a…very different line of work. They want those books, those documents. Of course, anything new can also be useful."_

_He knew well the business KC had tried to leave behind. Bakura flipped back to the photo of his ghost, smirking at the idea of it. He would master Ryou's mannerisms, every aspect of his life. He would eliminate him, and then become him. He would get close to the target. Then he would complete the mission. _

He follows the target from a safe distance back; watching his movements, ensuring that he is the only one with any interest in the white-haired youth. It's a routine trip to the corner store; he's been watching him for long enough that his movements have become habitual, predictable. He wonders if Kaiba would be this easy.

This late at night, people tend to keep their heads down. Anyone looking up might have seen him turn a corner and disappear into a particularly shadowy patch of concrete and brick; one second there and the next, gone, as if the night was playing tricks on their eyes. As if there hadn't been anyone there at all.

Ryou slumps in Bakura's arms—he would dearly love to have him struggle, fight him, fighting against himself just to see what it would look like, but it won't do. Bakura slips the syringe into a plastic bag and seals it tight, wondering briefly on that last conscious look on Ryou's face. His mouth was open, rounded into a perfect oval, his eyes dark, surprise lifting the brows in unseeing arches. It is an expression that Bakura would never see upon his own face. It is something he'd once called beautiful.

He isn't Bakura any longer. He checks his watch—the agency will take care of the ghost—there can't be any evidence, any hairs or sweat or noise at all. He has gloves on to mask his fingerprints; not uncommon in this weather, but he wants to risk the touch.

It is the first and last time they'll be so close, and he wants to make the most of that short time, studying him like a sculpture on display, seeing all of his perfections and his imperfections. His death does not mean that his life will go unlived.

The cleaners from the agency are due in three minutes. He is gone in two, everything in Ryou's pockets now in his, the man's jacket draped over one arm. He walks purposefully, but slowly, savoring each step. He can see each exhale in the air, and is glad to reach his apartment and be out of the cold. One key lets him into the building; he nimbly climbs up two flights of stairs and to his door, the last on the left. The next key slides in and he lets himself inside. The door closes behind him, and for a moment he simply takes in his surroundings.

Home sweet home.

**[]**

The first thing Mai does when she comes home is kick off her shoes. Heels are flattering, but demand much from their wearer. "Jounouchi?" She tries again. He isn't home yet.

It's unusual for him to be out this late but she doesn't mind the time alone. She likes that in a relationship—that she can be with someone but that they aren't dependent on each other. They each have their own jobs, their own secrets. That must be where Jounouchi is—he has to reach out beyond the sphere of Duel Monsters for work, difficult to do in a city like Domino. Typical of that tycoon, to never let sleeping dogs lie.

They are lounging later that night, the television on, more for ambient noise than anything else. He is doing something with her hair, and when she turns her face away she hears his whisper: "How did I get so lucky? You're too good for me."

He may be lucky but she isn't good. Ends have means, and not for the first time she wonders what he would think, and how he would look at her. She's no coward, but this is different.

**[]**

A knock at the door interrupts his dinner preparations. Kaiba Seto is standing there in the hallway, a slim black cellphone in his hand. It takes him a minute to find his voice. "You left your phone," Kaiba says, walking inside when he is invited in.

"I left it on purpose," he replies, taking the phone back and moving swiftly over to his desk to charge it. He is stopped with one hand upon his shoulder, the touch light but still so very powerful.

"You don't want noodles." Kaiba flicks the dial on the stove down, covering the traditional food with a solid metal lid, trying his best to hide his own distaste of the food. "No, I'm pretty sure you're hungry for steak." This, he supposed, was Kaiba's own way of being polite.

"Next you'll tell me that I'm pretty sure I left the car running, too?"

His smile is a little impudent, but it does the trick. Ten minutes find them in the private room of an upscale restaurant in the heart of downtown, in a booth that both manages to be in a corner yet also in the center of the restaurant.

Kaiba orders a steak, and when the waitress turns to Bakura, he folds his menu closed. "What he's having." He's speaking to the waitress, yet his eyes never leave Kaiba's.

Their meal is mostly eaten in silence; Bakura is more than content to focus much of his attention on the beautifully presented food. Substance _and_ style—a combination he can appreciate.

"You're quiet today. More quiet than usual." Kaiba brakes the silence. Bakura dabs at his mouth with a napkin—Kaiba had to wait until he had taken an enormous mouthful of steak to talk to him.

"You look stressed, so I decided that you didn't need me to make it any worse," he says, offering him a cheery smile.

"You don't—" he begins, then thinks better of it and falls silent. They study each other through their nearly-full drink glasses. A waitress approaches their table to clear their plates.

"…It's Schroeder Corp," Kaiba manages, only after they are once again alone. "They like to say that they specialize in transforming the impossibilities of gaming technology, if only because they make it impossible for anyone else to function around them."

Bakura nods sagely into his drink. Better to let Kaiba keep talking. He has a feeling that Ryou would insist that they have a dessert to end their meal, so he insists, and Kaiba's expression lets him know that nothing is out of the ordinary.

**[]**

"I told you, Ryou, I didn't want any presents."

Late October, and Kaiba looks as sour as ever, even on the day that it is his very right to not be. Bakura smartly sidesteps the man blocking a good half of the doorway, the plastic bag that hangs from one arm rustling with the movement. "For the man who has everything? No, I took the money that I would have spent on your Blue-Eyes White Dragon paperweight and donated it to charity. This is to help liven up your house."

Kaiba grunted, closing the door behind him. The house has been especially quiet since Mokuba left for college, and he suspects that the house will remain undecorated for most of the winter season.

Bakura wonders briefly if Kaiba is expecting any extra affection from him, but he casts that thought aside as ridiculous and he settles for an awkward shuffle to the side and reaches into the plastic bag, hoping that the sentiments that could never be accepted in practice reach his eyes in spirit.

"I stopped at the store for decorations, but the only ones available had Disney logos," he says, resting a small round gourd on the table in the foyer. On one side two triangle eyes, a slim nose and a gap-toothed grin have been drawn in black marker. "I suppose this will have to do."

The topic resurfaces again once they have finished an extravagant dinner and have moved to the adjoining sitting room, with heavily draped windows concealing the mansion's expansive front lawn. "It's for Halloween—less than a week from tonight, I believe." He pauses, taps a finger to his chin as if in thought. "You don't much care for it, do you?"

"If you're asking whether or not I'm going to let hordes of children run through my yard and then reward them with candy…? ...The answer is no." He can't even bring himself to imagine such a thing.

"I've always admired the spirit of the holiday," Bakura says after a while, the corners of his mouth ghosting up into a smile. "Not just the food, but the customs. Things that are dark or scary are normal for that one day. I think I especially like the tradition of dressing up in costumes, of becoming something else for the night... or _someone_ else." When he thinks about it, the house they are currently in is haunted in its own way—something has to fill the empty space that spills out of each uninhabited room.

He has to do _something_ to elicit a reaction. "What would you dress up as?"

"The CEO of Kaiba Corporation."

"Terrifying."

He thinks that he saw Kaiba hide a smile, so he considers his job done and leans back against the couch and stretches. He didn't know they could be this comfortable.

**[]**

Jounouchi doesn't feel young anymore—reckless, naïve, in charge of his own destiny. He's tired, slipping into bed early, pressing a light kiss above her right temple before turning his back to the woman sleeping next to him. He knows that she doesn't like it when she can feel his breaths on her skin at night. They know things about each other now; he doesn't have to reinforce that knowledge with words.

Mai doesn't feel old anymore. She's always been the mature one, grown, a woman that others can look up to. She wants to be captivating, like something bright and shiny and new. Mai feels like making mistakes.

She can't make them. She won't even let herself, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to, regardless.

**[]**

He turns over in the bed, pulling the sheets from one side over his shoulder before realizing that there was only a depression in the pillow beside him. He can hear the faint sound of computer keys clicking from the far side of the room, their cadence regular and without hesitation.

"I had a dream about you," he says, the image still fresh in his mind. "A dream where your arms were wings. Something was happening—everywhere there were flashes of light, like a thousand cameras going off around us. It was a coronation, I think… but then, you just flew away. And there wasn't anyone left to take a picture then."

The typing stills; he recognizes the repeated staccato of the backspace bar. Kaiba had made a mistake. The thought somehow makes him smile into the pillow.

**[]**

_Bakura hated being called in to the agency—this side of the game was all about consequences and politics, a never-ending cycle of inaction. They ran, sure, but only when they were scared or at the end of their ropes, twisting it around to entrap the next sacrificial lamb in its snare. He'd rather just play the hunter. He didn't like being summoned. _

_The office was bright and clean and so very, very white, a color that he just couldn't stand. And there was so much of it—screaming over the walls and the ceiling tiles and the plushness of the carpet. He couldn't trace it to its beginning or end. "This is your new handler, Kujaku Mai."_

_The woman was not one of the typical agency desk-dwellers, and there was something very distracting in the way her fitted purple blouse came to a distinct V in the center—_

"_What happened to Ryouta?"_

"_Transferred to personnel. Like you care, anyways." He didn't. Out of sight, out of mind. So he turned his attention to Mai as the two of them were left alone. She didn't attempt to shake his hand or adhere to any other foreseeable social norm, and that gave him the smallest sliver of respect for her. _

"_Bakura," she said, making his name sound different than he'd ever heard it before, coming off of her lips. "Typically, they didn't even give me access to your file before pulling me in here. Are you any good?"_

_He nodded. Even the unclassified pages of his file were impressive as hell. "I'm good. If I weren't, somebody would have shot me in the back a long time ago."_

"_Spoken like a true field man. Just try to keep up with me, alright?"_

_And they said _he_ was arrogant. _

**[]**

He says it bluntly, like he's rehearsed it more than once in front of the mirror. "You're the one who keeps bringing it up, not me." Jounouchi runs a hand through his hair and frowns; he is always forgetting to get it cut. "Just move on. I have."

Mai often wonders what it was like for him. She's used to nothing—mere flickers of recognition, the occasional acknowledgement, but for the majority of her youth people would look through her. It is only when she loses her invisibility by dressing out that the glances linger, hollow, but still she thirsts for it.

To be put down, day after day, is something she can't wholly understand. But she can't let it go—she's never been able to. And besides, Kaiba is still a bully—he has merely changed playing fields, from his school days of tormenting Jounouchi to the bigger fish of the corporate world.

Of course, the agency can't know. The connection is through Jounouchi, not her—she has never appeared more than a capable agent in their eyes. The case being thrown upon her desk was truly fortuitous—she is starting to think that she only takes the luck of others because she has none for herself.

She'd been doing all of this for Jounouchi, yet with each day things seemed to lose their charms. It is like waking up from an enviable dream only to discover her waking state in bits and pieces, what she thought she wanted stolen away from her.

All the same, Kaiba's never learned his lesson, and Mai plans to teach it to him in a way that he would understand. She wonders what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

What, then, does Bakura see when he looks into the mirror? Who he is, or who he appears to be?

**[]**

It is snowing, the powder coating the frames of each window and making the paths slick. He wasn't about to drive home in this weather, so he stays, and is grateful for the thick blankets that separate them. Kaiba won't notice his movements.

He stands up and stretches, moving noiselessly to the computer station set into the far wall. Kaiba won't wake up; he is too exhausted by the events of the day and the night to do anything but sleep soundly. He was sure of that.

Bakura takes the small USB drive he had hidden on his last stay and slides it into a port. It is pre-programmed, set to copy the contents of the hard drive and then vanish; erasing all traces of its existence much like snowfall obscures a line of footprints. He will worry about the encryptions later—that is the agency's job, after all.

He will have to do the same on the servers of the Kaiba Corporation tower, but for now he seizes this opportunity and continues to prowl the darkness, looking in each drawer, scrutinizing the labels of several CDs, closely studying the painting that hung opposite the window—yes, that is definitely an original Cézanne, a landscape with a woman set into the distance –and striking gold in the form of a small leather tri-fold.

**[]**

It is late; there's not one car on the top level of the parking garage, just the two of them and a canopy of stars that bleed into the occasional lights from the towers surrounding them. Mai is standing under one of the few working wall lights, the yellow washing over her, making her look sickly and unwell. Let her, then. She called this meeting.

"I haven't heard from you in nearly a month," she starts, seeming to Bakura to forget the entire definition of a 'deep cover' operation. "You've relayed no useable intel in that entire time, except for the location of those files that you know we can't break into. We need account numbers, passwords, even an encrypted copy of his computer files would be more than enough at this stage in the game. I'm tired of having to bust my ass to cover yours, what with the agency breathing down my neck for results—"

Bakura is close enough to her now that he can see her, really see her, and he knows there's something else. He can see it in the sheen of her face and the creases of her fitted blouse.

"Yes, you've been pulling a few too many late nights at the office," he says, slowing his words to regain control over this meeting. "But I don't think it has as much to do with me as with you. Must be why you're here, at this hour, dressed like _that_. You have to get attention from somebody because I'll bet that you aren't getting any from him—"

"You don't know anything," and she isn't screaming but it has the same effect, of drawing his eyes right to her face, and to how very angry and disillusioned and wounded she looks. An animal is at its most dangerous when wounded, and there is still plenty of fight left in her. Good. She's angry, so he must have guessed correctly. Yet when she speaks next, her voice is like acid, stinging the pair of them. "I'm sure your late nights won't be for nothing either. Just keep sleeping with him, and maybe he'll divulge all of his secrets."

Nasty, caustic, she knows full well what she's insinuating: "Or maybe _he's_ the one screwing you—"

God, he's never wanted to backhand a woman so much in his life. His hand is raised, his fingers shaking. He could do it. "Go on," she whispers, goading him. She knows it too. "Prove it."

Instead of striking her he grabs one curling lock of hair in his fist and pulls; they both know that they're fighting fire with fire, and he wonders briefly if this is the real reason she called him out here tonight but he doesn't care. Bakura's hands mar the smoothness of her skin, his lips searing and dry against hers. They move out of the light.

There is a difference between living a cover and believing it, unreservedly, like a religion or a theorem. Bakura can read her in the way her hands push against his chest just as he can read Kaiba by the cadences of his heartbeats, or footsteps on the stairs, or the continuous rainfall of keystrokes. There is a sort of power in this knowledge. It must be power, then, that he craves.

Mai knows it, and the part of her that refuses to revel in his attention hates herself for it, for how unreasonable and _stupid_ this whole charade has become. For now she is content to just clutch him to herself and make hate with him, and find a new reason for being in the pattern they make when they fall.

**[]**

There is just something about Swiss Banks that Bakura especially loves. They know how to treat a man with money here—he is shown instantly into a private sitting room with plush furniture and gilded accents, honoring an age of honor, and of valor. A minute later a rotund, slightly balding man enters and inquires after his health and the duration of his stay. "Do you like it so far here, Mr.… Kaiba?"

"Please, call me Mokuba." Bakura smiles at the man. So agreeable, the Swiss.

Seto Kaiba's name might be known in certain circles the world over, but the younger brother is much easier to impersonate, and especially bearing such immaculate credentials—courtesy of his own work and the agency's helpful assistance—no one has any reason to believe he is other than who he appears to be.

"Here is the letter we spoke to you about over the phone earlier—" he says, smoothly withdrawing a letter folded into thirds from his jacket-pocket and passing it across to the banker. The letter clearly and concisely stipulates the terms to open up a new bank account in the younger Kaiba's name, complete with account numbers of Seto Kaiba's personal reserve as well as his signature, lifted from one of the many papers strewn about his room. He has researched both bank's policies thoroughly; there is no additional, in-person meetings for transactions of less than five million in American dollars, and the letter indicates as such. Five million will be wired into the new account in a matter of weeks.

Bakura dashes off his signature with a friendly smile. The money is like a drop in the ocean to Kaiba, but is enough to make it worth his while. The banker takes the papers to promptly file away. So reliable, the Swiss.

Now that the horrid un-pleasantries of conducting business are over, coffee and pastries are called for and the two men settle in to discuss European politics, like gentlemen.

**[]**

Days later, weeks later, and Mai can't help but wonder if Bakura thinks of her half as much as she thinks of him. It's infuriating. He is infuriating. Maybe he and Kaiba deserve each other.

She isn't happy, and it's breaking Jounouchi's heart but there it is. She never allows herself to think about love, but what Mai doesn't know is if she still _wants_ him. Her desires have often shifted over time, and she would follow them, but the stakes have never been this high.

**[]**

There are moments when he notices it—a cup of dark coffee rose halfway to his lips, face half-hidden by a computer screen, the moments before Bakura pretends to wake after a long, uninterrupted slumber –the weight of Kaiba's gaze on him accompanies a reaction that he can barely suppress.

Kaiba feels more for him now than ever before. It is a victory in every sense of the word.

Bakura has become a better Ryou than Ryou could ever be.

**[]**

Bakura wakes up, finding himself once again alone in the master suite. Kaiba told him several nights ago that he would be traveling to Shanghai on business; flying back early the next morning. It is the perfect time to finish everything. He would sever all loose ties.

Starting with the Cézanne that hangs in the bedroom.

He has been eyeing that painting for far too long, and the familiar instincts have already started to kick in. He has to have it.

It is a simple matter to separate the canvas itself from the frame. He doubts Kaiba would have such stringent security measures here—the real challenge is always just getting through the front door—but it just wouldn't do to trigger an alarm by forcibly removing the frame from the wall.

He can see the paining up close now; it is of a landscape, with a woman in the background. The branches of two willow trees reach down to touch the earth as the woman leans over, her blonde hair mimicking nature as it obscures her face.

He remembers seeing several other paintings placed strategically throughout the expansive house. He has time to get them all.

Not an hour later he stands one block from the Kaiba Corporation tower, his head tilted back slightly to take it all in. If Bakura were to infiltrate the structure he would have a host of disguises; he would know every routine sweep of the security guards and cameras, and he would be armed—naturally—in case anyone stood between him and the only exit. There would be any number of extralegal measures involved.

But, he isn't Bakura.

He is Ryou.

All he has to do is drop Kaiba's name if he were questioned—which he wouldn't be; everyone in that tower is too preoccupied with their own business to worry about his—laugh it off, and again remind them again that he was here under the CEO's directive.

He enters the beehive and threads his way through the crowd and to the elevator. His desired floor is somewhere in the middle, and by the time the car arrives at his floor he is alone. He steps out onto a carpeted hallway, the walls beige and undecorated. This is the right place. A place with no show potential at all serves very few purposes-either this floor is for interns or it is home to KC's archives. He is inclined to believe the latter, as on his last soujourn here—a promise made to Kaiba to tidy up his office, it looked like a barely-contained explosion in a paper factory—he discovered as much as he could about the inner workings of this building.

He walks purposefully but naturally; if there were security cameras he wanted nothing suspicious to raise alarms in the minds of any potential observers.

He looks for the door that appears the oldest. It is not difficult to let himself into the room, empty and gathering dust. Someone from KC probably only visits this room every quarter to drop off files. Most of the archives are kept for legal purposes, but Bakura knows of no one who would be willing to tangle with Kaiba Corporation in a court of law. It would be like poking a sleeping dragon with a very short stick.

The storage annex curves around and to the left and he follows the shelves, mentally tracing back the timeline to the files from the old days of Kaiba Corporation. He finds what he is looking for in a battered green filing cabinet tucked away behind a larger shelving system; hidden in such a way that one had to be looking for it to come across it at all.

There are several documents he is after. Lists of contacts, records of sale and trade and where the money exchanged hands. From his own experience, and from well-placed associates in this line of work, documents are a necessary risk. The media could spin it a thousand different ways but in the end, making somebody else look much worse is the surest way to deflect the heat onto them. You'd never go down alone, at any rate.

He'd sooner just take the originals but he isn't stupid; it is easy work to make copies and then return everything without a trace, disappearing wraithlike into the night and gone from this mission for good. So he rolls the papers backwards, obscuring anything a little too interesting from potential prying eyes.

His intuition is right; there is one multi-purpose center on every floor in relatively the same position, and he heads there, matching eyes with a woman hovering over the copier. He'd have to wait. No big deal. Bakura goes over to a neighboring counter and fusses with the stapler, putting his body between the stranger and his own papers. He empties the stapler and refills it.

Once she leaves he approaches the copy machine, noticing that the machine is electronic and logs employee codes with each job requested. Fortunately, the machine is still set to the woman's account and he quickly lines up a queue of requests before it resets, making a copy of each paper and scooping them up in his arms once finished.

It is finished.

The job he was born for. The perfect crime.

Bakura walks calmly out of the Kaiba Corporation tower with its secrets in his hands. That same day, five million is wired from Seto Kaiba's personal account to one assumed to be in his brother's name, where the money would be shuffled around several places before arriving, untraceably, at his own account.

Instead of feeling satisfied with his victory, the completion of this mission seems different. It really is perfect—he has become Ryou. The deception has become reality. They have all slipped into it at some point.

What can he do beyond this?

_Nothing_, his mind chants. All other heists will pale in comparison. Every crime, every infiltration will be compared to this very mission.

He leaves the KC complex behind, the ultimate question still hanging in the air:

How can he improve upon the perfect crime?

**[]**

He is only supposed to use the cell phone for emergencies, so at first she is startled to hear the unfamiliar melody coming from her purse. He waits for the catch of her breath before speaking, not bothering with any of the usual greetings. Bakura is the only one who knows that phone number; there isn't a chance that anyone else is calling her.

"If you had the chance to leave, would you take it?"

He sounds like the Bakura she once knew.

"To walk away, and leave everything behind… would you?"

He's taking a gamble, calling her. But he wouldn't have called at all if he didn't know what her answer would be. In those words Mai realizes that she doesn't care who wins anymore, she doesn't care about the agency. It's a weary race, burning down like a candle, squeezing every last second out of the spluttering flame until, no longer useful, it becomes nothing but curls of smoke in the air.

But what does _she_ want? Bakura could have asked her the question directly. Her eyes drink in the small apartment as if committing it to memory. She already knows it by heart. "Yes," she gasps, and he hangs up.

**[]**

Bakura remembers something Mai once told him and grins despite himself—there was no way of knowing just how true her words would be.

"_Tomorrow, then? At the agency?"_

"_Hell no. This is deep cover—as far as you're concerned, after today there is no agency."_

**[]**

Bakura has papers—all of the agents have them, off-the-book accounts that can never be traced, and there is something thrilling in the idea that he is finally about to use them.

He eases the car onto the highway. From the airport he can be anywhere before he is discovered. There are any number of islands in the Pacific that would suit him—and if the agency comes looking, all they would see are the two seats for Los Angeles and Sydney that he had booked in advance under his own name, dead ends but ones that would keep them occupied for more than long enough. It's never been about revenge; although, depending on the price that Schroeder Corp is willing to pay for the documents, it would be remiss not to do a little stock-market speculation on the outcomes of the upcoming corporate battle.

He decides, impulsively, not to sell the Cézanne; the painting with the woman in the background. He has grown rather attached to it.

Besides, he has five other paintings with him, also liberated from the house. Enough, certainly, to live like royalty. Bakura supposes it will have to do.

**[]**

Mai is at her desk reasonably early, looking forward to the unique ability that paperwork has on reducing her capacity for extraneous thought. She's already gone through several pages of memos when the chatter reaches her corner of the office.

"—And get two agents on the ground in LAX, ready to intercept him when he gets off that flight! And we need eyes in several of the other major airports. I want a radius and a flag on all of his known aliases—"

Mai leans to one side as she studies the flurry of activity with a detached sort of amusement. All of this anxiety over a single person; she's been in this line of work long enough to know that if someone doesn't want to be found, they are already gone.

"— and Mai, has he mentioned anything to you?" The section chief is standing by her desk then, his expression serious.

"…excuse me?"

"Bakura. He's missing—along with every file he claimed from Kaiba Corporation. He completed the mission, and then booked flights to Sydney and Los Angeles. We've also been alerted that he has stolen six quite valuable works of art from the Kaiba household, and let's not even begin to talk about the money—"

Mai looked on as he continued to talk, knowing that Bakura was already gone. It was the perfect crime, and now he had truly vanished—they wouldn't find him. "I don't know where he would have gone," she replied, finding her thoughts now more distracted than ever. "I didn't know he was going to cut himself free like that…" The words kept circling in her mind. _I don't know_.

"Get a report on my desk by this afternoon."

She is left alone as the sea of activity continues around her, independent of her. Mai loads up her word processor and wonders just what the hell she can even include in the mission report.

She won't give him up; is that all she can do? Cover for him in her own small way and wait? Mai is many things, but she is also _not_ many things, and what she is not is patient.

She fishes in her purse for a few quarters; coffee just won't cut it this morning. Instead of her black leather coin purse, her fingers close around the slim profile of a cell phone, purchased just for this mission.

Only one other person knows the number for that cell phone, and Mai is certain that out there, wherever he is, the phone is with him.

Bakura didn't sever every tie after all…

Mai returns to her work, but her eyes continue to stray to her purse, and to the phone that she knows is securely hidden inside. Her lips quirk upwards, into a smile that is half secret, and half shy.

* * *

><p><em><strong>{The<strong>_ _**End}**_

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

I read far too many thrillers :D There are little references to a bunch of them in here: The Wheel of Darkness, The Mastership Game, one by Alex Berenson whose title escapes me, etc.

The painting is fictitious but the painter is real; I was simply looking for a recognizable artist who did both landscapes (something I feel Kaiba would rather own) and portraits (because I wanted one that referenced Mai).

_Thank you_ for reading and _please_ review, I value and treasure each one.


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